On this date in 1889, the already-venerable prison at Shepton Mallet — which dates to 1610 and was England’s oldest working jail until its closure in 2013 — began its illustrious era as an execution site.
Samuel Reyland/Ryland/Rylands (press accounts used all three variants) bludgeoned, slashed, and strangled to death 10-year-old Emma Jane Davies in Yeobridge, Somerset, on January 2nd of that same year. Some newsmen eagerly attributed to the Yeobridge Murderer a wish “to emulate the London tragedies,” i.e., the Ripper slayings of late 1888. If Rylands’s confession is to be believed, it might have traced instead to a brain injury.
From the Western Mail, Feb. 26, 1889.
Shepton Mallet would remain a site for civilian executions until 1926; it was also favored as the American military prison during World War II, and 18 U.S. military executions took place there.
On this day..
- 1979: Gen. Nader Jahanbani and eleven others
- 1663: Alexander Kennedy, forger of false bonds and writts
- 1601: Henry Cuffe, mingled interest
- 1951: Ants Kaljurand, Estonian Forest Brother
- 1569: Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Conde, at the Battle of Jarnac
- 1493: Peter Dane, in the Sternberger Hostienschänderprozess
- 1996: Thomas Reckley, the first in Bahamas in 12 years
- 1956: Jesus Maria de Galindez
- 2005: A gay couple in Saudi Arabia
- 1985: Stephen Morin, serial killer convert
- 1858: Felice Orsini, Italian revolutionary
- D
- 1998: Bahram Khan, by his victim's brother